The Alutiiq Museum’s director of operations is moving on.
Marnie Leist is movnig to Minnesota to take a position as executive director of the Brown County Historical Society. (Photo courtesy of the Alutiiq Museum)
Marnie Leist has been in Kodiak for 11 years, and looks back to when she first arrived to the island.
She said she got a master’s degree in art history and museum studies, and the only position she applied to following graduation was one at the museum.
When she moved here, it was the first time she’d been to Kodiak, she said.
“I’d come from a city, and so I wasn’t used to the pile of nets and all the things that people reuse, but then I learned to appreciate it,” she said. “Like, it’s there because people do reuse, and they do repurpose things, and they are resourceful, and you do have to save your extra plywood sheets for a rainy day, and I’ve grown to really appreciate that aspect of the community.”
She said she stayed for the community.
“Because I can go to the repository and see 7,500 years of history, I can study how people hunted marine mammals and things like that, but to have the people – their resiliency I think is amazing, and I think that’s really kept me here.”
She said Alaska – and Kodiak – is special because it’s one of the few places where people still rely on their environment for food and entertainment.
She says she’ll be sad to leave, but she’s ready for the new challenges that await her.
Her next professional home will be the Brown County Historical Society in Minnesota, where she’s stepping into the position of executive director.
